Protests follow killing of East Timorese youth
By Edmund Thompson
East Timorese youths and their supporters in Jakarta have organised protests following the killing of an East Timorese youth, Manuel Soares, on June 7.
Soares, 25, had moved to Jakarta under a program organised by the Tiara Foundation, which is run by President Suharto's daughter Tutut. The foundation has moved hundreds of East Timorese youth to Jakarta and other towns in Java, where they have been employed in factories, as security guards and in other low-paid work.
East Timorese liberation organisations argue that the primary aim of this and similar programs is to undermine the strength of the urban-based resistance movement in East Timor, by removing from the island students and unemployed youth who are its grassroots support.
Like many other participants in the program, Soares found the realities of life and work in Java very different from what he had been promised in East Timor. Instead of a job with a promised monthly wage of 450,000 rupiah (approximately A$300), he was paid 35,000 rupiah, far below the income needed to sustain even a minimal living standard in Jakarta.
At the same time, in late 1995, Soares, along with many other Tiara participants, was pressured by military intelligence officers to participate in a series of "pro-integration" demonstrations in Jakarta.
These were organised by BAIS, the army intelligence agency, and were designed to counter actions by East Timorese youths and their supporters, who in late 1995 occupied several foreign embassies in order to oppose the Indonesian occupation of East Timor and to seek political asylum. One of the actions which Soares refused to participate in was a particularly brutal attack in December 1995, when a group of unidentified "'supporters of integration" attacked protesters in the Dutch embassy, wounding many of them and several embassy staff, including the ambassador.
Soares left his job, and joined the bands of unemployed youths who eke out an existence in the poor areas of Jakarta like Tanah Abang. From this time, he was sought by military and police intelligence. Intelligence officers finally succeeded in finding Soares by pressuring one of his friends, Duarte Freitas.
Freitas subsequently made a statement that he was approached in the early hours of June 7 by four men in civilian clothes who carried pistols and who claimed to be from the police intelligence branch. They forced Freitas to find and identify Soares. When he was pointed out at the Tanah Abang bus terminal, Soares was grabbed by the men, and taken by them to the Tanah Abang police station. He was then ordered to strip and dragged off to one side of the compound. When Freitas attempted to follow, he was threatened and ordered to leave.
The next day, it became clear that Soares had been killed. Police claimed that he was a criminal who had been shot dead while attempting to flee arrest.
On June 10, a group of about 75 East Timorese youth, organised in the East Timor Youth and Student Forum, supported by Indonesian activists from the People's Democratic Party and the Indonesian East Timor solidarity organisation SPRIM, held an action in the national parliament building to protest Soares' killing. They were surrounded by military and plain-clothes intelligence officers, while a delegation attempted to meet with parliamentary representatives.